Let Them Call Me Rebel: Saul Alinsky: His Life and Legacy (Paperback)

~ (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Chicago-born social activist Saul Alinsky's sharp criticism of what he saw as shortcomings in the civil rights movement and the federal war on poverty make this book timely. Photos.

Copyright 1992 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

This is an important account of a "complex and idiosyncratic" urban populist who insisted that power was the keystone of social change. Horwitt expands on the work done by P. David Finks in The Radical Vision of Saul Alinsky ( LJ 7/84) to produce a comprehensive appraisal of Alinksy's "colorful confrontational tactics" as a community organizer and his influence on a "succeeding generation of social activists." Streetwise yet reflective, Alinsky was a true believer in the possibility of American democracy as a means of attaining social justice "for ordinary people." Horwitt has done an especially good job discussing Alinsky's youth and personal life. An insightful and well-written study, recommended for all academic and larger public libraries.
- John R. Sillito, Weber State Coll. Lib., Ogden, Ut.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 618 pages
• Publisher: Vintage (March 31, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 067973418X
• ISBN-13: 978-0679734185
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.1 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #68,299 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Let Them Call Me Rebel, September 29, 2008

By	Ronald E. Stackler (Malibu, California) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book is required reading for anyone who is interested in understanding what a "community organizer" is and what he does in Chicago. Barack Obama worked for organizations founded by Saul Alinsky and run by his proteges.
Obama never gives details of his community organizing, but this book tells what he would have been doing for his several years in the 1980's in Chicago: teaching people how to boycott, protest and threaten the economically and politically powerful in order to get what they want.
It is a unique training, to say the least, for a Presidential candidate.

26 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Be thou a man, April 29, 2000

By A Customer

Saul Alinsky was a complex and colorful man of great integrity and a civic activist with world-wide influence. Dedicated to empowering the politically weak and unorganized, Alinsky is rightly credited as the founder of community self-help. In this highly readable account, we come to appreciate Alinsky's empathic genius and his flair for showmanship. He had an uncanny personal gift for discerning which acts of protest would get attention and results, as well as an ability to teach others some of the tricks of the trade. Of all the anecdotes in the book, perhaps the most memorable concerns the time that young Alinsky was hauled before his rabbi for socking a kid who had beat up his own best friend. Alinsky excuses his behavior as "eye for an eye", and part of the "American way". His rabbi's answer is memorable. "You think you're a man because you do what everyone else does. Now I want to tell you something the great Rabbi Hillel said: 'Where there are no men, be thou a man.' I want you to remember that." And Alinsky did.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Saul Alinsky's biography, October 25, 2008

By	Terenzu 4 America (Nor Cal) - See all my reviews

Although I am only about one hundred pages into this book, it has been both and easy and interesting read so far. This sociologist/criminologist experienced Chicago from the late 1920's and I am up to the beginnings of his BYNC (Back of the Yards Neighborhood Council). I bought this book believing this to be the community organization which Alinsky started that was the organization which hired Barack H. Obama after he returns to Chicago from Havard Law School.